CVE-2018-16831

Exp

Smarty before 3.1.33-dev-4 allows attackers to bypass the trusted_dir protection mechanism via a file:./../ substring in an include statement.

Published: 2018-09-11 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-16831 is rated High Exploit Risk (70.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.66%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +2.29% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-16831

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-16831

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.38% 2.66% +2.29%
2 2025-03-30 0.85% 0.38% -0.47%
3 2025-03-29 — 0.85% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-16831

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.9 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.2 3.6 [email protected]
7.1 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.6 6.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-16831

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2018-16831

GHSA-65j5-vpm7-6xp4 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: composer — Smarty Path Traversal Vulnerability

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-16831

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-16831 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (smarty3), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-16831
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-16831 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (smarty3), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 8, released 2, DNE 1, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-16831

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-16831

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
smarty smarty >= 3.0.0, <= 3.1.32 cpe:2.3:a:smarty:smarty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-16831

URL Tags
https://github.com/smarty-php/smarty/issues/486 Exploit Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence